Her squads have won or placed in state and national competitions, and have performed during the Walt Disney World Easter parade and last year's Super Bowl in Atlanta.

Currently coaching at University High School in Orlando, Viersen, 48, is a finalist for the 1995 national cheerleading coach of the year award, to be announced in May. She also serves in cheerleading organizations nationwide and judges at competitions.

With her background, it was only natural that she open the Cheer Magic academy. Some gymnastics schools offer cheerleading classes, but Viersen said hers is the only Central Florida school dedicated exclusively to such instruction.

Viersen has known for years what some people are just finding out: Cheerleading is no longer the most-popular girls shaking their pompons for the hunks on the home team. Today, cheerleading is a physically demanding sport that builds self-esteem, teamwork and discipline in young women and men.

''Also, as far as the competitions, they learn about ups and downs - that life has them and you continue on going,'' she said.

Daniel De La Cruz got a rude awakening when he joined Viersen's University squad, having injured his knee in football.

''I thought this was going to be a breeze, that it was nerdy, wussy stuff,'' he said. ''I never got so tired and beat up - it was worse than football.''

''People think it's just jumping around and yelling - it's harder than it looks,'' said University junior Kelly Altman about the year-round sport, which requires hours of practice daily.

Viersen already has signed up 79 students, cheerleaders from high schools including Boone, Lake Mary and Oak Ridge.

When Viersen speaks, her students hear a lot more than the remnants of her Erwin, Tenn., accent. She is a hard-working, dedicated coach who can be tough, but who cares about her students as if they were her own children, parents and colleagues say.

Viersen said she opened the school to provide a place where teams and individuals could fine-tune their skills, an outlet many area high schools lack. And she wanted to begin exposing younger children to cheerleading, which isn't usually offered as an activity before high school.

Her school's opening comes when cheerleading seems to be growing by leaps and vaults.

There are 3 million cheerleaders nationwide today, 24 percent more than in 1987, according to research for Varsity Spirit Corp. The company sells cheerleading paraphernalia and sponsors camps and competitions, some televised on ESPN.

''It's growing at all levels - high school, junior high and a lot at the peewee level,'' said Varsity senior vice president Greg Webb in Memphis, Tenn. ''That activity is exploding compared to other things nationwide.''

On March 4, the Florida High School Athletic Association sanctioned cheerleading as a sport, beginning with the 1996-97 school year. The move means high schools statewide will need to budget resources for the activity.

''I think the board was trying . . . to add more girls' programs to our total program,'' said Cecelia Jackson, FHSAA field director in Gainesville.

Florida becomes the fifth state to sanction the sport, after Oklahoma, Georgia, West Virginia and Michigan, Webb said.

Some people believe cheerleading's growth is due to more programs for girls being added to meet Title IX's gender equity requirement for funding student sports. But Webb and others said the expansion is mostly due to the sport's increasingly athletic routines, more televised competitions and changing attitudes.

''Where once it was a popularity contest - the best-looking girls - now it's the gymnasts and athletes who must compete to make these squads,'' Viersen said. ''There has been an increased level of respect and recognition.''

Attitudes seem to have come full circle since the anti-establishment era of the 1970s.

''There really was a lot of apathy for school spirit - it wasn't so popular to be a cheerleader,'' Varsity's Webb noted. ''Then physical fitness became the thing to do and cheerleading evolved with that.''

Viersen said her next project will be to try to organize a national competition for the Orlando Arena.

''I was a majorette at my college - I've been a majorette all my life,'' she said. ''Now, it's just in my blood.''